v0.15 (2023-03-15) — better rookies, cuter stuff

howdy, compadre. GGv0.15 is live now, playable in browser.

i spent a lot of this week’s update refactorin’, but there’s still a couple poggable morsels of additional content in v0.15:

rookie card updates

when you’ve played as much of this game as i have you start to notice that rookies are boring. that’s okay to an extent but the real issue is that every game starts with them. so, i jazzed em up a little bit with some 1. randomness, and 2. hail-mary cards:

before: boring, standard, predictable

after: interesting, exciting, always potentially useful

this is more fun, and more flavorful. these are eager recruits, untrained but willing to put their all into this fight. they can amaze you, disappoint you, or inspire you with their reckless sacrifice. they are fragile, yep, they’re rookies, but they’ve still got heart!

big thanks to Tomas Sala (yes the Falconeer dev) for the initial observation that weak rookies were a wasted opportunity to inject a little high-risk, high-reward poggable gameplay. it was very cool of him to play and provide feedback on my little game!!

this should make the early game a little more interesting, and should keep rookies at least a little relevant even into the late game. if you’re going into a fight where you’re obviously gonna get smashed, can’t hurt to try beginner’s luck and pray for a highroll…

cuter title screen

jazzed it up. i like to think of it as a little in media res, the GGs themselves meeting up sometime in between battles to make plans for the next enemy incursion. hang around for a bit.

set autobattle speed

sigh… let’s get this over with…

ripped this straight from super auto pets. speed up the pace of the battle, so if you know you’re headed to your demise (or you know you’ve mathematically won) you can just blast through all the animations and get to the result.

big shot: back on top

last week i introduced the Big Shot:

their design and playstyle is really cool, but unfortunately they were weak as dirt. well pardner, they’re strong now. they’ve got some very interesting cards and they really shine in the late game. they’re best on late-game, heavily-upgraded teams with lots of powerful cards. they’re the second-tier promotion after vigilante. give it a shot if you’ve got the cash for it!

next week: plans

i really, really want this to be the week where i extend the loop of the game. at the moment i’m feeling very inspired by backpack hero, megaman, inscryption and darkest dungeon. i have lots of ideas for what the “overworld” will be like but i haven’t actually prototyped anything yet. that’s my challenge this week.

basically, what i’m saying is that there’s a pretty good chance i won’t have much to show next week. but one way or the other i’ll make sure to give you somethin’ good next week. new class maybe, new cards. we’ll see!

THANKS FOR READIN’, and THANKS FOR PLAYIN’. see you around, pardner.

(don’t click that download link below; this game is played in the browser!)